Hot Topics:

The Joker Biden

The Lowell Sun

Updated:
10/13/2012 07:04:49 AM EDT

Give Vice President Joe Biden credit. He showed he had a pulse in Thursday's debate with Republican Paul Ryan, something President Barack Obama couldn't do in sleepwalking through his first showdown with Mitt Romney.

Still, Biden's performance -- both feisty and bizarre -- only served to reinforce to the American people the broad scope of the condescending attitude of the Democrat's (Fading) Dream Team Ticket.

Obama didn't want to be on the stage with Romney in their Oct. 3 Denver debate. It was beneath him. He could have been at a Hollywood fundraiser with Jay-Z, Beyonce and the rest of the gliteratti.

Off that inept presidential performance, which prompted plunging poll numbers, Biden put down the water pail he's carried for Obama the past four years and tried to throw a Hail Mary pass from the hope-and-change playbook. It was a good long heave; yet just like the administration's other false starts and failing economic record, it was off target by a long margin.

Biden may not have been sipping Kool-Aid on stage, but it was clear by his smug, smiling, smirky, and sneering delivery that he was trying to sell it to the American people. They drank it four years ago, Joe, but this time Americans are taking the water much more seriously.

Biden's a decent guy, but Thursday he was thrown into the quarterback's role that Obama abandoned in the Romney debate. While he moved the ball downfield at times, Biden relied on the same, status-quo playcalling -- blaming everyone else for the poor performance of the team in the field. Almost on cue, Biden's finger-pointing offense sputtered.

Advertisement

And when he should have walked off the field, he rudely tried to hog the ball. Maybe he thought the replacement refs were running the show. Whatever, Cranky Biden took too many snaps, and fumbled away a chance to make it heroically across the goal line.

Ryan just had to stay resolute in his principles -- which he did -- to thwart Biden's desperate drive to bully his way into the end zone.

Biden interrupted Congressman Ryan 82 times in 90 minutes. The rudeness reaffirmed how the Obama administration has talked down to the American people since 2008 in a very partisan and divisive manner. It was evident in Biden's high-strung defense of Obamacare, which, as Ryan countered, is not a bipartisan law, imposes 12 of 18 new taxes on the middle class, and robs Medicare recipients of $720 billion in services. Biden laughed it off. Independent voters watching at home probably didn't.

Biden's biggest contradiction came on foreign policy. He insisted U.S. intelligence agencies failed to tell the White House of worsening security conditions in Benghazi, Libya, before the U.S. Embassy assault, resulting in the deaths of ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans. It was a lie. Numerous assessments were made and requests forwarded. Washington failed to heed the messages.

Later, after Ryan called for tougher actions against Iran's nuclear arms ambitions, Biden said otherwise. "We'll know, we'll know" when Iran gets close to developing a nuclear warhead, he blared into the camera. Who will tell you, Joe, the same U.S. intelligence agencies that you say didn't tell you about Benghazi? A better question is: Why didn't you listen the first time and will you listen the next?

Joe Biden tried to put up a good fight in his debate with Paul Ryan, but what was he really fighting for? Maybe if he had wiped that sickening smile off his face Americans would have a better idea.

Welcome to your discussion forum: Sign in with a Disqus account or your social networking account for your comment to be posted immediately, provided it meets the guidelines. (READ HOW.)
Comments made here are the sole responsibility of the person posting them; these comments do not reflect the opinion of The Sun. So keep it civil.